


Hotel California

by Brosedshield



Series: Works No Longer In Progress [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 10:45:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13456590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brosedshield/pseuds/Brosedshield
Summary: On the run from demons, exhausted and with no other options, Dean and Sam check into Hotel California, an elegant hacienda-style hotel in the middle of nowhere. It's a lovely place. You can check in any time you like.





	1. On a dark desert highway

It was one of those long, blasted California highways that cut through hundreds of miles of desert. They seem like nothing so much as the middle of nowhere, even at midday. In the cold, pitch-black morning Dean could imagine that it was just him, and Sam, and the Impala, and not another human or demonic soul in the world.

He was grateful for the darkness and the long flat stretch of cracked concrete. The first meant that — unless they were riding without lights, like he was — he would see anyone chasing them. The second meant that going eighty in the dark wasn't as likely to get them killed.

Injured and on the run, but they were still alive, and that's what counted. He just wished he had a way to cut the fucking wind that slapped at his face through the broken driver-side window and dried the blood in his hair. He'd tried putting a visor down, to deflect it, or something, but the visor had just snapped into the ceiling again and again until the sound, like pounding on a gate that would never open, rattled his nerves harder than even the labored sound of Sam's breathing beside him. 

Ahead, he saw a light and the combined scents of marijuana and blood grew so sharp in his nostrils that it practically hurt. Fuck fuck how could those demon bastards get ahead…

He jerked the wheel, barely stopped himself from hitting the brake — straight road, yeah, but at eighty miles-per-fucking-hour that was a bad idea no matter the terrain — but when he looked up again, heart pounding like automatic machine gun fire against his ribs, the light was gone.

Dean pulled over, shaking, drowsy exhaustion fighting for control of his hands, his eyes. He couldn't fucking see straight. He leaned over and shook his brother, careful of the red hole in his shoulder, the fresh bruises that probably hurt like a mother on his broken ribs. Sam had survived worse. He'd better fucking survive.

"Sam. Hey, Sammy! Can you drive? I gotta…"

Sam looked at him with glassy eyes. Even with the tiny pocket flashlight that was the only light Dean had, he could see that one pupil was reacting to the light, while the other was dilated, almost demon-sized, even against the flare of the flashlight.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam whispered. I….everything's fuzzy. I think I'm…"

"Concussed, yeah I can see that. Don't worry, Sammy, just hold on for me, yeah? I'll get us somewhere. Stay awake, yeah?"

Sam nodded, barely, more felt than seen. "Yeah, Dean."

Dean pulled back onto the road and inched forward, half the speed he had been going, but that still felt too fucking fast. He could feel the exhaustion winning, the bloodloss and the stress and the worry eating him up from the inside and any second now he was going to close his eyes just for a second too long and the wheel was going to drift…

The sign for the little town, barely readable by the starlight, said there was food and lodging fifteen miles off the beaten path. Dean hoped they could make it.

_On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair_  
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air  
Up ahead in the distance, I saw shimmering light  
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim  
I had to stop for the night 


	2. There she stood in the doorway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It can be understood that the Eagles song of the same name doesn't exist in this universe. No matter how tired the boys are, they wouldn't have missed THAT reference.

The little town — Old Western style with a hint of Spanish stucco and exhaustion — was dark like the grave as the Impala rolled past, not a single light shining on the two-story main street. Dean sent up a prayer to whatever might be listening and drove.

The hotel was built in the style of an old hacienda, wrought iron in the gate and a tall, white-washed wall keeping out the desert dust. And strangers, Dean figured, stopping the car before the office door and resting his head against the steering wheel for a moment. The only sign of life was a flickering neon 'Vacancy" sign. 

"I'm going in, Sammy, gonna try and get a room," Dean said, and turned the car into parking lot.

The engine died and the world seemed too still, breathless and tense. The sudden tapping on the window made Dean jump halfway out of his skin and reach for the blessed rounds on the bench seat next to him.

A woman was staring at him through the window, eyes dark and hair a long fall of ebony down the sun-kissed line of her throat. She had her fingernails just resting on the glass and a candelabra in one hand with a line of white, dripping candles, their flicker defining her face with strange shadows. "You gentlemen looking for a room?"

"Cristo, lady," Dean said, hand still on the gun. "You scared me. You always sneak up on people like that?"

She smiled and somewhere — probably at the silent mission church they'd passed coming through town — a bell began to toll. It stopped after three, and Dean glanced quickly at the dash clock on the Impala. 4:00 a.m.

Dean blamed exhaustion and the demons on their trail for why his first thought was "witching hour" instead of time zone change.

"Usually," she said. "So, are you?"

Dean blinked at her, trying to parse what they might be. Beside him Sam struggled to sit up. "Room. Yeah, we could use a room. That is, if you've really got vacancies."

She had a nice smile, even if the flicker of the candelight cast strange shadows beneath her eyes. "We have plenty of room all year round. Welcome to Hotel California."

Dean struggled out of the Impala, grabbed their duffels and went around to help Sam out. When they got up to the door she was waiting for them in the doorway to the sprawling hotel, candelabra in her hands.

"What's with the firestarters?" Dean asked. The world was swimming a bit around him, but he could manage. Beside him, Sam smiled, but still wasn't focusing.

"The electricity went out around midnight," she said. "It's fairly common around here. If the power lines from the dam go down we're one of the first systems to get cut off."

The corridor that she led them down was longer than it should have been from what Dean had seen of the hotel from the outside, but it smelled like furniture polish and dust, and there was a worn spot down the center of the carpet from decades of feet. Voices from a friendly, maybe slightly drunken argument drifted down from the end of the corridor. Dean hadn't figured out if they were real people or just someone leaving their TV cranked too loud before the woman stopped in front of a door. She opened it with an old fashioned key, smiled, and gestured them in.

Walking into that room was like strolling into a period romantic comedy, down to the artistically placed candles on the ancient, ornate furniture and a huge poster bed. There was the bed, a desk, and two doors that Dean figured (hoped) lead to a bathroom and closet.

He was right on one count. The bathroom was just next to them when they came in, small enough that he wasn't sure he would be able to close the door and take a piss at the same time. The other door led into another, smaller room.

"I'll give you these two connecting ones," she said, placing the key carefully on the desk. "More comfortable for you."

Dean dropped Sam on the bed, and his brother startled struggling with his shoes. "Thanks," Dean said. "You want a down-payment or something…"

"Don't worry about it," she said. "You look tired and we'll all still be here tomorrow. Sleep well." With a final smile she turned and closed the door.

Dean made a quick circuit of the room, checked out the smaller one, and made a discovery that made him chuckle. "Hey, Sammy," he called into the other room, "they've got mirrors on the ceiling! Figure we got the honeymoon suit?"

He returned warily to the main bedroom when there was no response to find Sam passed out over the covers. Dean relaxed a little.

Dean turned his brother so that he could pull a handful of the blankets up over his shoulders. He snuffed the candles on the desk and then retreated to the smaller room, which featured a huge TV. But no electricity.

"This is either heaven or hell," he muttered to himself while he checked the guns in his bag and put them where he could reach them quickly if their tail caught up. Dean figured he was too keyed up to sleep, but he was out as soon as his head hit the pancake-flat pillow. He had wild, disturbing dreams, but retained nothing but a faint impression of them when morning broke through the window directly into his eyes.

_There she stood in the doorway;  
I heard the mission bell  
And I was thinking to myself,  
This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'  
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way  
There were voices down the corridor,  
I thought I heard them say..._

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first work I'm posting in the "Works No Longer in Progress" series. I've had one on my computer for ages, but haven't touched it in three years (even though it always gets on the list of "Stories I'd like to work on"). When I started I thought I had SUCH A GOOD PLAN, but it's faded over the years (and it was pretty heavily hurt!Sam focused, with an edge of non-con) and I would...just really like to post something. And let this one, at least what I have of it go free.


End file.
